


let it snow

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (Very Slight), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Meeting, M/M, Passionate and Fascinating Exchange of Letters, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill, Second Chances, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21792334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: Newt and Hermann's first meeting doesn't go well. Their second one, forty-eight hours later in a run-down old diner, goes a little bit better.(from winter prompt #47: our first date goes horribly so i don’t know why i say yes to a second date, and now, we’re stuck at the diner until the snow slows down and i’m having fun)
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 11
Kudos: 147





	let it snow

**Author's Note:**

> this was just meant to be a short tumblr prompt fill but it got so long i thought it might be more fun as a oneshot here!

Like, the thing is, as much as it sucks, Newt kinda went into this whole thing knowing he was gonna fuck it up somehow. He holds no illusions about his charisma, or his ability to maintain a stable, cohesive line of conversation, or even the general fucking fact that he tends to overwhelm people within five minutes of meeting them. His relationship with Hermann was (important indicator here: _was_ ) good for that reason—Hermann never had to put up with him in person. He never had to find out that Newt sometimes gets so excited about something he can’t help but interrupt whoever it is he’s talking to, or rants about anything and everything that crosses his mind, or cracks weird jokes when he’s nervous. He never had to hear Newt’s (shrill) voice. He never had to see Newt’s (cool, but probably tasteless) tattoos. 

It never felt like blatant deception. Newt wasn’t going to start out a letter to Hermann like _hey, man, I sound like a symphony of kazoos and one time I got tossed out of a TGI Friday’s because I drank too much at happy hour and started ranting about the mating habits of salamanders._ It just…wasn’t the right kind of medium for that.

The way Hermann’s looking at him now, though, is making Newt reconsider.

They got coffee for their first meeting, of all things. How fucking cliche. Hermann’s in town for a conference, and Newt’s newly freed of teaching duties until January by winter break, and it just…seemed like the thing to do when you dig someone. Buy them coffee.

Their first argument began before Newt even finished stirring sugar into his dark roast. The second and third before Hermann even touched his own. By the fifth, they were getting dirty looks from fellow customers, and by the sixth, they were politely asked by a haggard-looking barista if they _please_ wouldn’t mind keeping their voices down, or else she might have to ask them to leave. They took their coffee to go and left anyway (their seventh argument springing up when Newt refused to wear his gloves and just shoved them in his pocket, and Hermann took _offense_ to this for some reason), and when they reached Newt’s bus stop, they finally allowed it all to fizzle out into uncomfortable silence.

That’s when Hermann started looking at Newt like _that_. Disappointed. Betrayed, even, like Newt had the wool over his eyes for four years and just finally ripped it off. It makes Newt’s stomach churn and his palms sweat. “Well,” he says, forcing a modicum of joviality into his voice. “It was…interesting meeting you, Hermann.”

Hermann nods slowly. “Yes,” he says.

Not just betrayed. Hermann looks hurt. _You and me both, buddy_ , Newt wants to say; personally, he can’t wait to get home and cry into his pillow for a bit. Maybe order a pizza. “You gonna be in town for much longer?” he says.

He knows the answer to this already. Hermann told him no less than three times in his last letter, and he texted it to Newt earlier today. “Until Sunday,” Hermann says, graciously allowing Newt to pretend he didn’t. “Four days.”

“Four days,” Newt repeats.

“Perhaps,” Hermann says, and he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly under his great puffy hood, “we could, ah...get together again, before I go.”

He says it in a way that clearly indicates to Newt he doesn’t actually want to do anything remotely like that, nor does he—really—want to spend even another second within the same hundred foot radius of Newt. The polite thing for Newt to do would be to decline the invitation, maybe make up some stupid excuse. He has a shit ton of laundry to do. He has, like, four dates with four other slightly less-prickly physicists. He’s moving to Australia. “That’d be fun,” he says instead, because Newt is not polite.

Hermann’s face darkens. “Dinner,” he says.

“My treat,” Newt says. “I insist.”

Hermann works his jaw rapidly, like he’s chewing a piece of gum, and when he finally speaks it’s through gritted teeth. “How very _kind_ of you. I suppose I will be in touch with further details.”

Cold and detached. Like it’s a fucking business transaction. “Smashing, old sport,” Newt says, and Hermann turns heel and marches off.

Newt doesn’t think Hermann will actually _be in touch with further details_ , so it comes as a shock when—two days later, two sad, depressing days later, while Newt (dressed in his comfiest sweats) is inspecting a carton of almond nog in the middle of a Trader Joe’s and debating how one nogs an almond—his phone buzzes with a text from the guy. He knows it’s from Hermann right away because he set up a special vibration alert for him. Two buzzes instead of the regular one. Is that pathetic? It’s pathetic. It didn't feel pathetic a year ago. _Dinner tonight_ , Hermann wrote. Not a question.

Newt sets down the almond nog and closes the fridge. “No fucking way,” he murmurs. _👌_ , he replies. _i know a good place_

He has a diner in mind, a little bit on the grimy side, with exactly the sort of service and food you’d expect from a diner on the grimy side. Newt’s in fucking love with their breakfast food, though, and he was already planning on going there tonight anyway for a stack of sadness chocolate chip pancakes, so it works out nicely. Besides. A diner seems like a good spot for a quick, in-and-out dinner with the guy who ran his heart over with a bus and then fucking _asked him out again_. No more time together than strictly necessary. He sends Hermann the address, changes his mind about the almond nog, sticks it in his basket, then hastily checks out so he can get home and change into something that doesn’t scream _I’ve been moping in my apartment for two days straight._

Hermann is punctual, of course, to a tee. Newt is less so. He finds Hermann standing in front of the diner and squinting up at the milky pink sky ten minutes after their set meeting time, and feels only the smallest pang of disappointment that Hermann didn’t just give up and go home five of those minutes ago. Newt would’ve.

Hermann looks about as disappointed to see him as Newt is. “Ah,” he says. “So you came.”

He’s wearing a different blazer than yesterday—this one bluer, more tweedy—over a navy turtleneck. Brown corduroy pants. The glasses on the chain around his neck are smudged so bad Newt can tell from here. He's gripping his cane like he's considering tripping Newt with it. “So did you,” Newt says.

“They’re calling for more snow,” Hermann says, apropos of nothing. That’d explain the squinting. “A great bit of it, in fact.”

“Guess we better get this over with, then,” Newt sighs. The last thing he wants is to be snowed in with _Hermann._ It really wouldn’t take too much for it, either; most sidewalks and street corners are still piled up high with evidence from the storm that hit them earlier that week and have slowly been turning to ice (a great base for _more_ snow to fall on), and it’s been fucking freezing all day. Even if just the buses or the T shut down Newt’s screwed. He’s practically halfway across the city—no way he can walk it.

They’re shown to a small booth deep in the back corner, next to a window (blinds shut) and, thank fuck, directly below a heating vent. Newt orders his sadness pancakes and a large strawberry milkshake. Hermann keeps his oversized parka on and orders coffee and the soup of the day. They don’t speak for twenty minutes.

Finally (once their food arrives, and they start on it in further silence), Hermann clears his throat. “My soup is rubbish,” he says.

“Yeah,” Newt agrees. “The soup here sucks ass.”

Hermann makes a face and sets his spoon down on a napkin. “You didn’t think to warn me ahead of time?” he says.

“Nah,” Newt says. He pours half a bottle of syrup over his pancakes, then takes a long, exaggerated bite. Shit, they really _are_ as good as he remembers. Hermann makes another face and summons their waiter over.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says, and gestures at Newt, “I’d like to have what he’s having instead.”

The waiter scribbles down in his notepad, nods, and dashes back off to the kitchen; Newt, meanwhile, can’t help but smile a little. It makes him sad even as he does it. “We could’ve just shared,” he says. (Hermann of a week ago would’ve cut into Newt’s plate without even asking.) “I don’t have cooties, Hermann.”

“I didn’t think you _would_ ,” Hermann says.

“Have cooties?” Newt says.

Hermann lets out a low, frustrated hiss of air through his teeth. “ _Share_ ,” he says. “We’re not…” He shakes his head, and busies himself with adding a gross amount of milk to his coffee.

They’re not. He’s right. They _were —_they were colleagues, and they were friends, and they were maybe something a little more (maybe something a little exciting), but now they’re just Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb, two sad, lonely young men and ex-somethings knocking knees in a crowded, dirty diner booth. Or maybe Newt’s just projecting. He stabs so viciously at his pancakes syrup spills over to the tabletop. “Still,” Newt mumbles. “You could’ve asked.” He would’ve liked it if Hermann did. 

The front door of the diner swings open, and a college-aged girl in a waitress dress and heavy winter coat comes stomping in; a rush of cold wind and _snowflakes_ follow her. “It’s awful out there!” she exclaims to another waitress minding the front counter. “I could barely see where I was going!”

“Oh, bugger,” Hermann groans, and he quickly pulls the window blinds open. 

It’s snowing, alright. It’s a fucking marshmallow world winter wonderland. There’s gotta be at least an inch and a half already. No way Newt’s walking home, or even to his bus stop, in that. And knowing Hermann and his weird prissiness, he won't be either. “Well, that’s just fucking peachy,” Newt says.

“We ought to leave now before it gets worse,” Hermann says, and then gives a distressed hum, and then begins to fret visibly. “Actually—oh—perhaps we ought to wait it out?”

“Wait it out,” Newt sighs. It’s safer, even if it is the very last thing he wants to do right now. If they’re lucky, it’ll stop, and they can navigate back to their respective apartment and hotel room without a problem. If they’re not—well—they’d probably slip and fall on their asses the same amount as they would if they left now. No real difference.

“I _suppose_ ,” Hermann sighs.

Their waiter brings him his pancakes and a new coffee, then leaves with the untouched soup bowl. Newt instinctively shoves the milk and two packets of sugar at Hermann. He’s met with a strange look. “I do pay attention to things, you know,” he says. Hermann literally just put the exact same in his previous cup not ten minutes ago. Also, he's pretty sure Hermann told him how he takes his coffee in a email or text before. It seems like the kind of thing they'd talk about.

“Right,” Hermann says. He takes both.

Newt watches him stir in his sugar, one small little bit at a time, and debates doing something very stupid. Catastrophically stupid. They’re gonna be here for a while, is all—he may as well ask what’s been eating away at him for the better part of the last two days, even if it means Hermann puffing up and scowling or, worst of all, telling the _truth._ “Hey, dude,” he says, “do you hate me?”

Hermann startles and drops a sugar packet. 

It spills on the table. “Hate you?” he says. He blinks owlishly at Newt behind those big, smudged librarian glasses. It’s weirdly cute. God—Newt’s still a fucking sucker for his whole dorky old professor vibe, despite it all. “Why on Earth would I hate you?”

Newt shrugs. “I mean. The other day didn’t exactly go _great_ , dude, if you didn’t notice. Kinda the opposite.”

“Well,” Hermann says. “Yes. It didn’t go—magnificently. But you’re still—you’re—er.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t hate you.”

“But you don’t like me,” Newt says.

“ _Newton_ ,” Hermann sighs.

Newt stares, unwavering, at him. Hermann sighs again.

“I feel a great many conflicting, confusing things about you,” he finally says. “ _For_ you. I think you are rude, and crass, and obnoxious. I think your ego is the size of the monsters you worship and could stand to do a little deflating.” He drags his fingertip through the mess of sugar, brushing it off with his thumb when he’s finished, and then goes back and drags it through the other way. “I think you are—clever. Funny. _Frighteningly_ intelligent. I think you have the capacity to be very kind when you wish to be, and particularly to me, in a way not many people are.” A small dash of pink blooms on each of his high cheekbones; he coughs once before continuing. “I think you are attractive.”

Newt preens and flushes simultaneously. A bulk of what Hermann said was insults, yeah, but _damn_ if he doesn’t feel like a million bucks anyway. Hermann thinks he’s _hot_. “I think you’re hot, too,” Newt says.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Somehow. Hermann closes off immediately. “I also think you’re _particularly_ adept at being a rude little prick,” he snaps. “It’s probably one of your bloody _doctorates_. Must you tease me for every little thing? My hair—my clothing—least of all my _feelings_ , which—”

“ _Hold_ it,” Newt says. “Your feelings? What fuck do you mean?”

Hermann scowls. “You know quite well what I mean. You’ve taken great pains to make it clear you don’t return them, and even greater pains to make me feel like a fool for thinking you ever could.”

“That’s not,” Newt says, but his voice falters. _My hair,_ Hermann said, _my clothes_ —when they’d met, Newt had teased him for the bowlcut (how could he fucking not?), and he teased him for the sweater he chose, and he teased him for the glasses chain, and he teased him for how quick he jumped at the chance to get coffee with Newt—but he meant for it to be, like, _flirty_ teasing. He was flirting. Hermann was cute, and he’d clearly picked out a new sweater to impress Newt, and he’d put a bit of _hair product_ in, even, and Newt’s heart was beating so fast he couldn’t help but blurt out every single stupid thing that crossed his mind. He'd struck a nerve without even realizing. “I was just trying to flirt,” Newt stammers. “I’m sorry. I was so nervous, and you’re the coolest person in the fucking _world_ , and I panicked—I’m not, like, good at this.”

Surprise flashes across Hermann’s face, then something like mollification. “Not remotely,” he agrees.

He looks at his lap. “Trying to flirt,” he says. “You were..?”

“Yeah, and failing pretty fucking badly, apparently,” Newt says. He cracks a grin. Hermann doesn’t quite return it, though the corners of his mouth do twitch up incrementally. Newt considers it a victory. “I’m sorry for being an ass and screwing things up.”

“Hm,” Hermann sniffs, and nods curtly. “And—I suppose I’m sorry, for jumping to conclusions as I did.”

“I kinda deserved it,” Newt says. “It’s cool.” He drums his fingers on the table. Over Hermann's shoulder, out the window, the snow hasn't stopped (the opposite, really), but Newt finds he doesn't really mind it now. “For the record, your sweater was cute.”

He gets a full smile this time. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at hermannsthumb and on twitter at hermanngaylieb


End file.
